Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday blamed the former Congress-led government for dividing the Andhra Pradesh in haste and said he was pained by the loss of life and damage to property that came with the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.
“Andhra and Telangana bifurcation was done in a hurry, without proper consultation, but I am still pained by the loss of innocent life and damage to property that took place...,” Modi said after laying the foundation stone for Amaravati, the new capital of Andhra Pradesh.
“There are some things that the British did and it still bothers us... The former government has also done something similar... there is always tension between Andhra and Telangana,” he said as urban development minister M. Venkaiah Naidu translated it in Telugu.
“Whether it is Andhra or Telangana, our soul is Telugu. Both states are two arms of the Telugu soul, both states shall prosper,” he said.
He also said that three states were divided in former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s tenure, but there was no bad blood.
“Three states were divided in Vajpayee’s time, there was no bloodshed, no bad feelings, I wish that for Andhra and Telangana too,” he said.
Apart from Venkaiah Naidu, union Ministers Ashok Gajapathi Raju and Nirmala Sitaraman, AP and Telangana Governor E S L Narasimhan and chief ministers of AP and Telangana N Chandrababu Naidu and K Chandrasekhar Rao, were among those present on the occasion of ‘shila nyas’ in the village.
